


Don't dream it (be it)

by hc_whiplashed_ty



Series: How Dongsookie came to be Donghyuckie, and how Taeyong and Donghyuckie came to be. [4]
Category: NCT (Band), SM Rookies
Genre: Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash, Self-Discovery, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, slight angst at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:00:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26310784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hc_whiplashed_ty/pseuds/hc_whiplashed_ty
Summary: He always watched a boy during recess. He wasn’t a stranger. Donghyuck had talked to him a couple of times before, he was quite cool. And Donghyuck always saw him surrounded by people, most of them girls. He was very handsome, and Donghyuck would lie if he said he didn’t feel a certain kind of way when he spoke to the other boy, but there was something else, something that Donghyuck didn’t recognized at first but as he thought more about it, he pinpointed it  as wanting to be like him.Or.A quick look into how Donghyuck realized he was transgender.Title taken from Rose Tint My World from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan & Lee Taeyong, Lee Donghyuck | Haechan & Mark Lee, Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Lee Taeyong
Series: How Dongsookie came to be Donghyuckie, and how Taeyong and Donghyuckie came to be. [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1700797
Kudos: 39





	Don't dream it (be it)

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! I'm back after a bit of a break. I'm going to try my best to keep updating this and my other series.
> 
> Also, I refer to Haechan as "he" and as "Donghyuck" even before he starts transitioning because that's what you should do when talking about a trans person's past :)
> 
> English isn't my first language so I apologize if there are typos, grammatical mistakes or if some ideas are unclear.

All his life he had felt different, and it wasn’t something other people had overlooked.

Back in the day, when he was very young in elementary school and still presenting as a girl, Donghyuck would always dress really masculine and his classmates would pick on him because of that. They most often referred to him as  _ “the tomboy”, _ in a negative way, or when they really got mean they would call him a dyke. 

He didn’t know what that meant, and the first time that it happened when one of his classmates pointed at him and called him that while laughing and other kids laughed along, he felt the need to ask his mom.

“Where did you hear that?”, was the first thing she asked him.

He didn’t really know how to respond, given the fact that he didn’t want his mom going to school and making a scandal. He just shrugged, and before his mom turned back to see the sidewalk in which they were walking, she looked at him suspiciously.

“Do you know what gay means, Dongsookie?” His mom asked after a few seconds of thinking how to explain it in the best way to her kid.

Donghyuck once again shook his head “no”.

“Gay means that someone is attracted to people of the same gender. So a man is gay when he likes another man and a woman is gay when she likes another woman.”

Donghyuck had to take a few seconds to grasp this new concept, as he had never heard about it before. His mom waited for him to nod in understanding and once he did, she carried on.

“But some people don’t agree with it and they call gay people bad names to make them feel bad and less than other people.” Donghyuck’s mom tried to put it as simple as she could, so that he could understand but also not getting into much detail about homophobes and slurs.

He was left confused by that, nevertheless. Why would someone care what other people were doing with their lives?

“And one of those bad names is… dyke. It’s used for women who love other women, but you should never say that word because it’s not a nice word.” She tried to make clear once again so her child wouldn’t go around saying that to people.

Donghyuck nodded and remained quiet for a bit. Why had the kids at school called him that? He didn’t like girls like that. At least he thought so. Or… Is that why he felt so different from the other girls? Could it be that they all treated each other like friends but his mind wasn’t thinking that way when he saw them? Is that why he was trying to dress like the boys from his class? To attract them in some way? 

Donghyuck shook his head trying to stop the thoughts from entering his mind so quickly and non-stop. 

The confusion didn’t leave him and he was impatient to figure things out, but he couldn’t. Every time he tried to picture himself being with a girl, it felt wrong.

The years passed by and the bullying subsided. Mainly because the kids started to mind their own business and their personalities started to be a bit deeper, making them get interested in other things and making name-calling to be slightly less fun.

Also, his doubts about himself and what made him different went straight to the back of his head, remaining there but not being as present as before. However, when he started puberty in his second-to-last year of elementary school, they came back to the surface as he started to get an idea of what was going on as he, as his mom put it,  _ “started to become a proper lady”.  _

His chest was suddenly not flat anymore, and everytime he got his period he found himself feeling horrible cramps. Everything felt completely off. His mom often told him that he just didn’t want to grow up and that he would get over it.

  
  
  
  


He always watched a boy during recess. He wasn’t a stranger. Donghyuck had talked to him a couple of times before, he was quite cool. And Donghyuck always saw him surrounded by people, most of them girls. He was very handsome, and Donghyuck would lie if he said he didn’t feel a certain kind of way when he spoke to the other boy, but there was something else, something that Donghyuck didn’t recognized at first but as he thought more about it, he pinpointed it as wanting to be like him. 

At first he only thought it was because he was popular. Donghyuck thought he didn’t have the looks to be like that but maybe if he were to open more and share some of his wit with everyone else, he could also attract some people. And so he became the class clown. It was fun getting in trouble and making people laugh, and he also started making friends and being slightly popular.

But the satisfaction didn’t last that long as he realized that it wasn’t enough.

There was still something missing and with every passing day it became more and more transparent to Donghyuck and to everyone close to him that something was off.

It wasn’t until he broke down in tears with his mom one evening that he finally started addressing what he was feeling. His mom cried with him and promised they would figure it out together.

They came across the term  _ transgender  _ while doing some research and it was like something clicked inside Donghyuck’s heart. Everything suddenly made sense. He felt deeply relieved that he had found an answer but at the same time he felt horribly mortified for what that meant. Even being very young he could tell that it was gonna be a long road with lots of bumps in the middle before he could feel entirely him.

However, because they started to move quickly, Donghyuck could feel himself getting giddy with excitement. 

He started seeing a psychologist right away, one that would help him instead of judging him, and as their sessions went on and Donghyuck processed how he wanted to transition, he along with his psychologist had a talk with his parents about what they should do next.

His parents and him chose a name and with the help of a lawyer they managed to change his legal name.

_ Lee Donghyuck. _

He couldn’t stop smiling the whole day when he found out that he was getting his legal name and gender as they should be.

He moved schools over the summer and he went on to a new beginning.

Donghyuck continued to go to his psychologist and everything in his life seemed to be falling into place slowly but surely.

That was until one morning he saw almost by fate SHINee’s Replay music video. He wouldn’t shut up to his mom about it and about how cool it must be to dance and sing in front of a camera. He went down that track, soon discovering Michael Jackson and as he did he started to sing and dance alone in his room, thinking no one could hear him.

But of course he wasn’t as quiet as he thought and his mom quickly caught up with the fact that he was becoming really passionate about both things, so much that she suggested he auditioned for a few entertainment companies. At first, Donghyuck freaked out about it because he knew how a lot of people in Korea felt about trans people let alone a trans idol, it probably hadn’t even crossed through their heads that that could possibly happen. But his mom assured him, telling him that he was talented and a good eye wouldn’t let him pass by only because of his gender and if they did then he would just have to audition to another company until he found the right fit. He agreed, and soon enough one morning they were on an airplane to Seoul.

He passed his very first audition and at the company where SHINee was from as well! He was thrilled but extremely nervous because as soon as he got in, his mother requested a meeting with the company to tell them about the situation.

They must have seen something in him because the fact that he was trans didn’t really matter to them. 

He moved to Seoul. He suddenly felt very alone, but that was to be expected. A lot of complicated things came with no-one knowing that he was trans. At the dorms, most of the times when they went home late at night after training, the guys would shower together to save time and sleep more. But as he didn’t want anyone seeing his body, he would always pretend he had stuff to do for school or he would come up with something else to take the last turn showering. Even if they had two bathrooms, he still had to wait at least an hour to shower after they got home late at night.

The first week he was there, he spent it completely alone. But he assumed that was for the better. That was until he saw another shy boy whom he hadn’t seen before, so presumably he was new as well and they hadn’t crossed paths in their trainee schedules yet. He approached him carefully when he saw him standing alone against a wall in the practice room when their teacher gave them a 5 minute break. He started spending time with the boy whose name Donghyuck had learnt was Mark, he was a foreigner but given that his parents were korean, he already spoke the language.

His second friend was someone that had caught his eye since the first time he had seen him. He, as Mark, was also his hyung, but he was four years older than the canadian boy and five years older than Donghyuck. Taeyong had introduced himself to Donghyuck because he had seen the younger one struggle with a particular dance move. It was certainly a rare occurrence for Donghyuck because being honest, he was a quick study when it came to dance, so he was visibly frustrated. But suddenly he felt a hand tapping timidly on his shoulder.

“Would you like help?” The boy whose name Donghyuck didn’t know yet asked with a small timid yet sweet smile.

It was strange for the trainees to offer to help each other. Meaning that if you asked for help from one of your peers, you were most likely to receive it, however they offering to help you if they saw you struggling on the other hand…

Donghyuck felt heat rise to his cheeks because this boy was the first person Donghyuck noticed on his first day at the company thanks to his looks and later because of his slightly sloppy dance skills that looked like they improved by the second and would one day be impressive. He hadn’t dared to talk to the boy before because he looked very chic and Donghyuck felt slightly jealous of his face and mostly his body, but that didn’t mean he disliked him, it was only his dysphoria acting up.

“Yes, please.” Donghyuck successfully avoided his voice showing the fact that his heart was racing just the slightest bit at talking to the boy.

After he had helped Donghyuck, they both only then realized that they didn’t know each other’s names and so they introduced themselves. He also learnt that Taeyong had only joined the company a good six months earlier than him and that he didn’t live at the trainee dorms because he was from Seoul. 

And so he started to stick by the side of those two hyungs when they had practices together.

Soon he started to come out of his shell more and more and he started making more friends, but he really felt trapped having no-one to confide in with his biggest worry and insecurity, and he feared the day in which he had to come out to them or worse, the day in which they found out. Donghyuck wouldn’t be able to stand their disgusted faces and so he decided he would do whatever it took for them not to know.


End file.
